Alcoholic liver disease：gut microbiota and therapeutic perspectives / 中国药理学通报

ABSTRACT

Alcoholic liver disease ( ALD ) , a chronic progres-sive disease, threatens human health seriously. An increasing number of studies have shown that gut flora dysbiosis plays an important role in the development of ALD. Intestinal microbiota maintains a steady state under normal conditions, regulating gut flora normal physiological function. However, chronic alcohol consumption produces intestinal bacteria overgrowth and dysbio-sis, including the alteration of the composition of intestinal mi-croflora, the increment of gut permeability and bacterial translo-cation. Subsequently, the host immune is activated, promoting the production of inflammatory cytokines in liver, which plays a central role in the development of ALD. Notably, the supple-ment of prebiotics or probiotics reverses the intestinal flora disor-der,ameliorating the clinical symptoms effectively in ALD pa-tients. The evidence impies that the modulation of dysbiosis may be effective in the prevention and treatment of ALD. This review summarizes the research progress on the mechanism of the devel-opment of dysbiosis-mediated ALD, to provide a theoretical basis for the research on intestinal flora and ALD.